


regrets etched into stone

by aftersunlights



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Endgame, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I am so sorry, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), tony dies in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 11:57:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18164903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftersunlights/pseuds/aftersunlights
Summary: Steve Rogers, at his very core, is human. He's done things he's not proud of; he has his own fair share of regrets, but as he watches Tony struggle to take another breath, too-broken and too-frail in his arms, he realizes that his biggest regret was ever hurting the man before him.or, the fic where tony dies in steve's arms.





	regrets etched into stone

**Author's Note:**

> i am so sorry for this. i just had a craving for angst and thus this monster was born. feel free to scream at me on twitter @aftersunlights! 
> 
> i couldnt come up with a reason as to tony's death, so it remains ambiguous in the fic - interpret it however you like. tony dies taking a shot meant for steve? tony gets injured by thanos? it's up to you :3c this is my very first fic, like, ever. ive literally never finished a fic before this in Any fandom, so please be kind to me. 
> 
> also - if steve's monologue seems vaguely familiar or similar to tony's in confession: civil war, its because i intended it to be that way. same thing for steve's "you gave me a home" thing. 
> 
> xoxo! love you all

Tony knows, rather than feels, that he’s dying.

 

He knows when he looks down and feels the way his flight suit clings to his skin, too-damp from something that isn’t his sweat; he knows it in the way that Steve turns, eyes widening as he screams. He knows it when he’s buckling to his knees and finally, _finally_ feels the way his lungs are slowly filling with blood, the way that everything flares into pain and heat.

 

Huh, Tony thinks. Funny how he watches Steve roar, inches away from him, though his ears don’t pick up on his scream. In hindsight he realizes his ears are ringing, blocking out the sounds of the battle going on around them, blocking out the matching cries of the Avengers as they watch Tony crumple to the ground.

 

_“Tony!”_

 

He sluggishly watches as Steve darts towards him, pushing past foe and ally alike, until he’s by his side - he feels his arms lock around his figure, and at once he feels at _home,_ in a way he hadn’t since Siberia, since the phone and letter had been dropped off at the Compound.

 

He knows that they hadn’t had the chance to talk things through, _not yet;_ Tony thought that they’d have more time. More time _together,_ to apologize and to heal and move past whatever had gone down between the both of them that now seemed so, so insignificant in the looming permanence of death.

 

In the end, the universe had never been one to be fair to Tony. In the end, they ran out of time.

 

He feels the way Steve’s hands shake as they try pry away the armor from his too-broken body, skin coming in contact with his as he tenderly pulls him closer to assess the extent of his wounds. He knows Steve realizes how bad it is when he cracks his eyes open to see the blonde’s grief-stricken expression, his shaking hands futilely trying to staunch the bleeding from the gash along his gut.

 

“Shhh,” Tony manages, coughing; he’s weakly raising his hand, thumb rubbing along Steve’s cheekbone, trying to smear away the tears that have already started to track down his cheeks. He feels a tired smile tug at the corners of his lips; he knows, at the very least, that he’d tried his best - he’d die with many regrets, sure, but at least he’d fought to the very end. At least he wasn’t going to die a coward.

 

“Steve, listen to me,” Tony rasps, even as Steve chokes on an inhale. He pulls the blonde closer, eyes shutting when he feels his forehead press against his own; he ignores the fact that both their hands are grimy and streaked with blood and clasps his hand, fingers threading through his in an effort to steady the captain. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Captain. Head up, stay sharp.”

 

Tony tries to laugh, to offer a reassuring smile, but he’s already slowly getting cold, vision graying at the edges. He knows that his borrowed time is up, for good this time - there was no more building armours and getting out of this situation. This was final.

 

“Don’t blame yourself, Steve. You did your best. You always have and you always will. This isn’t your fault - this isn’t anybody’s fault but that—“ He’s coughing, a sickening gurgle that alerts Steve to just how far gone the mechanic already is. “— Purple bastard’s. End it for me, will you? End this war. This suffering and death and destruction. _Promise me._ ”

 

Tony’s brilliant, brown eyes were slowly drifting shut, hand dropping from his face even as Steve desperately snatches it back up to press against his tear-soaked cheeks, slowly rocking with the broken form of his former lover.

 

“I promise, Tony,” The blonde’s openly sobbing now, hands carding through his hair, pressing kiss after kiss to his forehead. “I love you, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.”

 

All around them the battle rages on, with the world none the wiser as Tony Stark finally and shakily takes his last breath in Steve Rogers’s arms, sporting a weary but genuine smile on the tired lines of his face.

 

He hears as the Avengers register his death; he registers, dully, each of their responses through the open comms. As they, one by one, realize what Steve’s pained, rattled cry meant - he hears as they each process it in their own ways.

 

He hears it in the way Rhodes’s breath chokes in his throat, a tight _“Tony, please, don’t do this,”_ shuddering its way out of the Colonel; he hears it in the way Clint’s explosively cursing, even as he takes alien after alien out, now with increasing ferocity and anger behind each of his controlled movements. He hears it in the way even Carol’s voice trembles as she orders the rest to focus and regroup, to press on.

 

At once, as though they were moving parts of a well-oiled machine, they moved to surround Steve and Tony, forming a protective barrier around the two as the Captain grieved, Tony’s now unresponsive and all-too-small and too-still body tucked in his arms.

 

Gingerly he finds a secluded spot to place Tony’s body in, though it seemed so so wrong to lay him on the dirt, to leave him alone. He ignores every cell in his body that’s screaming to pick him back up, to bring him back to the Tower, to safety - he knows that there’s one last battle he has to finish.

 

Rising on his feet, his fingers tremble as they reach for the straps of his shield; he’s so tired, so so exhausted, but he knows he has to see this battle through. One last fight.

 

“Whatever it takes,” He mumbles to himself, strapping it tight to his arm, the shattered remains of his heart scrambling to hold themselves together as he does what he does best and charges towards the heart of the battle.

 

x.

 

_“Despite the devastating loss that we suffered during what the government now dubs Infinity War, we will forever remember the heroes who sacrificed everything in order to get our loved ones back to us, to defeat the universal threat that we now know as the Mad Titan. He no longer haunts us, and although we won the battle, humanity has lost many, too._

 

_Although we’ve suffered losses, we have to keep moving. To keep going. This is what we owe to everyone that we’ve lost. We have to move on - this is all we can do. All that we should do.”_

 

x. 

 

They’d lost so many heroes. They won the battle, sure, but what did it cost?

 

 _Everything,_ Peter thinks, as he flops onto the grass in front of Tony Stark’s tombstone, his hand reaching out to trail along the embossed letters that spelled his name out.

 

_Tony Stark - IRON MAN._

_He watches over us._

 

He feels his lower lip tremble, feels as his fists tighten up on his knees and the acute pain of grief swell up in his chest again, as it always did whenever it hit him that his mentor and the man he’d looked up to all his _life_ was dead - that he was no longer going to smile at him as he ruffled his hair, that he was no longer around to toss suit ideas about with, that he would no longer look at Peter as his _son._

 

“Mr. Stark,” The teen’s crying, brokenly, into his forearms, curling up tight. “I miss you.”

 

“We all do, kid,” He hears a voice from behind him; when he’s raising his head he watches as Captain America’s emerging, shoulders drooping, pain and weariness well-etched into the worn lines of his face. The man’s shuffling forward, feet scuffing along the pavement, until he’s placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

 

 _I know,_ the touch said. _But you’re not alone._ From behind Steve his best friends emerged; he watches as Ned and MJ hesitate, both watching him in varying degrees of worry, before they launch themselves forward to wrap Peter into a tight embrace.

 

“It’s okay,” Ned says, his own voice wavering.

 

“We’re here for you.” MJ says, and even she sounds a little pained.

 

Steve watches with a sad smile, his own chest constricting; whatever was left of his own friends hadn’t been enough to comfort him that way; they were all broken and suffering as well, all mourning the deaths of their allies, their friends, their loved ones.

 

For Steve, that had been fine. He knew that he wasn’t in any position to comfort anyone else, either, but watching the scene before him made him yearn for when he was younger and so, so much more naive.

 

x.

 

When Peter and his friends finally leave, Steve’s sitting, slowly, next to Tony’s headstone. He leans against it in the way he’d used to lean against Tony as they binge watched Star Wars in the Avengers’ lounge, in the way he would bump shoulders with Tony when they were both out on the roof for some fresh air.

 

Now, he thinks, the stone is all too cold and unforgiving.

 

Before he knows it, Steve’s talking out loud - both to himself and to Tony, even though the man was no longer listening. He talks and talks until his throat’s hoarse and scratchy, until the tears that track down his cheeks dry. Talks about anything and everything, about how the world was moving on, how everyone was coping in their own ways. He tells Tony about the Iron Man statue the government was planning to build.

 

And finally:

 

“I wish I’d told you about your parents.”

 

He pauses, scrubs a hand over his face, and continues. “Maybe then we could’ve had more time - and I keep telling myself that maybe things would be different. Maybe you would still be alive if I hadn’t driven you away.

 

Maybe, if I had agreed with the Accords, you’d still be here. Maybe we would’ve fought side by side the first time against Thanos, and then maybe we would’ve won. _I have so many regrets, Tony -_ and perhaps the biggest one I will carry to my grave is that I _lost_ you, way before Thanos even set foot on Earth.”

 

“When I woke up in this century, I had nothing and no one. You changed that, Tony, and… The one thing— the _one thing—_ I should’ve told you, but now can’t…” He’s openly crying now, curling up into a position not unlike Peter’s had been. “…You gave me a home. A _purpose._ And now without you I don’t know if I have one anymore.”

 

Hours later, Carol finds the Captain curled against the tombstone, fast asleep, hands tightly clutching the bouquet of pink carnations and small forget-me-nots.

 

x.

 

True enough, the world never forgets.

 

As humanity moved on and continued progressing and advancing, there was one thing that they never forgot; from makeshift memorials to song tributes and the walls of graffiti that paid their homage to the Avengers, the heroes lived on in the memories of the people, steadfast and unwavering, their memory forever immortalized.

 

As the years and centuries wore on, humanity began reaching out to other galaxies, to other planets. No longer were they confined to Earth, to their humanity. And as they expanded their horizons and kept advancing, they brought with them tales of the Avengers.

 

Over time, as they became more myths or legends, facts about the founding members diluted or distorted beyond recognition as all legends were; however, no matter how their stories were retold, one thing was for sure—

 

They had been Earth’s mightiest heroes.


End file.
